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Pataki Signs Bill to Combat Drinking by Young Drivers

Following a national trend, Gov. George E. Pataki signed legislation today that would for the first time impose penalties on people under the age of 21 who are caught driving with even trace amounts of alcohol in their blood.

Known as the zero-tolerance law, the measure would authorize the State Department of Motor Vehicles to suspend the driver's license of a minor if arrested while driving with a blood alcohol level as low as two-hundredths of 1 percent -- the equivalent for most people of one beer or a glass of wine.

New York now becomes the 33d state to enact such legislation, which has been strongly endorsed by Congress and President Clinton. Federal officials and anti-drunken driving groups say several studies show the number of alcohol-related motor-vehicle accidents involving minors has dropped sharply in the states that enacted similar measures.

To pressure states to clamp down on teen-age drunken driving, Congress approved legislation last year that would require the Federal Department of Transportation to withhold highway funds from states that did not enact zero-tolerance laws. New York, which stood to lose $20 million in Federal aid by 1998, today became the ninth state to pass the legislation since the law took effect.

The new law takes effect on Nov. 1. Under existing law, the state does not impose any punishment on minors or adults caught driving with a blood alcohol level under 0.07 percent -- even though the legal drinking age is 21. The law does include penalties for people of all ages arrested while driving with blood alcohol levels 0.07 percent or higher. For most people, that amounts to drinking about three beers in an hour.

New Jersey approved similar legislation in 1992. Motorists under the age of 21 lose their driver's license for three months and are subject to a $500 fine if they exceed the blood alcohol limit of 0.01 percent, a tenth of the 0.10 limit for those over 21, state police officials said.

"That's about a gulp," said Trooper Al Della Fave, a spokesman for the New Jersey state police. "The message in New Jersey is that you cannot drink or possess alcohol if you are under the legal age limit."

In signing the New York bill today, Mr. Pataki said he was acting as a concerned parent who wanted to reduce the number of young people killed in accidents caused by drunken drivers. In 1994, 46 people under age 21 died and an additional 1,100 were injured in alcohol-related automobile accidents in New York State.

The Governor said he believed that as many as 25 lives could be saved from enacting the new statute. "We are sending a clear message that the lives of our children, the lives of our young people under age 21, are too important to continue to tolerate someone who would break the law by drinking and driving," he said. "No longer will you be able to flout the law and risk the lives of our young people across the state."

For anti-drunken driving groups, today's bill-signing ceremony marked the end of a nearly five-year drive to enact the measure, which they have made one of their top lobbying priorities in Albany.

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One supporter of the measure, David Kelly, whose older brother was killed by a drunken driver five years ago, said: "The pain that my family has had to endure as a result of this tragedy has been devastating. Laws like this will help reduce the number of deaths."

Today's action underscored the power of the Federal Government to prod states to enact legislation. The Republican-controlled State Senate has passed zero-tolerance bills for the last three years, but the measure has repeatedly run into opposition in the Democratic-controlled Assembly, where critics have asserted that it could stigmatize adolescents and violate their rights.

What broke the logjam this year was the threat of losing Federal highway money, the bill's supporters said. "They are going to say they would have done it anyway," said Mr. Kelly, an Albany lobbyist who represented Mothers Against Drunk Driving during bill negotiations. "I think the Federal mandate really pushed them to do this."

The new law authorizes the State Motor Vehicles Department to suspend a minor's driver's license for six months after the first offense and for one year, or until the minor turns 21 -- whichever is longer -- for the second offense.

Officials in New Jersey and Connecticut, which have already enacted zero-tolerance bills, said today that it was too early to tell whether the laws had helped reduce traffic fatalities among minors. But they said passage of the bill in New York would discourage teen-age drunken drivers from crossing state borders in the New York City metropolitan area.

People under 21 represent a disproportionate number of the people killed in drunken-driving accidents, accounting for just 7 percent of the nation's drivers but 15 percent of the deaths resulting from alcohol-related automobile crashes. And several studies provide evidence that zero-tolerance laws have been effective in cutting down on those deaths. A 1992 Federal study of Maryland showed an 11 percent decrease in the number of accidents involving underage drivers who had been drinking. And a private study showed that, in the first four states to enact zero-tolerance laws, nighttime fatal accidents involving underage drivers who had been drinking declined by 34 percent.

Critics of zero-tolerance laws say a blood-alcohol level of 0.02 percent will not always register on a Breathalyzer, making the law difficult to enforce. But supporters of the bill say most police Breathalyzers can detect levels as low as 0.02 percent.

State Senator Norman J. Levy, a Long Island Republican who has sponsored the legislation for several years, said it was a particularly powerful disincentive to underage drinking because young people care so much about their driving privileges.

"For young people, their most valued asset is a driver's license," he said. "To lose it for six months, or one year or longer, is a major deterrent to young people having anything to drink before driving."